To take part in any project

How to Participate

Please add only the profiles of members of this party to this project (not their descendants)! This is easily done from the profile page using the Add to project link.

If you have any queries related to these settlers please start a discussion linked to this project. (See the menu top right).

Please add related projects to the menu on the right.

If you have links to related web pages that would be of interest to others please add them in the relevant section at the bottom of the page. In order to do this use the drop down menu at the top left of the screen and Join the Project. If this option is not available to you then contact a collaborator and ask to be added to the project. As a collaborator you will be able to edit this page.

Add any documents of interest using the menu at the top right of the page, and then add a link to the document in the text under the heading below. If you do not know how to do this please contact one of the other collaborators to assist you.

"No. 51 on the Colonial Department list, led by Richard Hayhurst of Liverpool, who described himself as a miner and cabinet maker. Hayhurst and Michael Whitley set themselves up as emigration agents in Liverpool, although with no official support or sanction, charging would-be emigrants a fee of £1 a head to 'register' their names with government. Their advertisements aroused suspicion and even indignation - one angry member of the public complained to the Colonial Department, 'They are no better than Swindlers, their office is a Public House' - but they served as a rallying point for northcountrymen who were unable to make up parties of their own, and they succeeded in organising a party of 34 men and their families. This was far short of their original aim of 100 families, who would have been entitled to their own chaplain in terms of the emigration scheme. The Rev William Boardman (who in the event emigrated as chaplain to Willson's party) was entered as chaplain in Hayhurst's early lists, but withdrew to join Willson's party when it became apparent that Hayhurst would not achieve the required number of settlers.

This was a joint-stock party, each man paying his own deposit with the exception of Hayhurst's servant Thomas Kidd. Many of the men had to sell their furniture and working looms to raise their deposit money, which suggests that a number of the 'farmers' in the party were in fact weavers by trade.

Michael Whitley did not accompany the party, but applied unsuccessfully in July 1820 for permission to take out a further 40 or 50 families who were 'anxiously awaiting an opportunity to follow their relatives and friends'.

The party sailed from Liverpool in the John on 13 January 1820 and reached Table Bay on 19 April and Algoa Bay during May. One of the emigrants, Henry Hudson, died on board th John before sailing; his widow went on to the Cape with the support of her nephew, James Robinson. The party's first location, named Trappes Valley after the Provisional Magistrate of Bathurst, proved inadequate, and further land was assigned to three separate divisions under Cawood and Griffiths, Murray, and Watson".

Members of Hayhurst's Party

[Bold links are to Geni profiles; other links are to other biographical notes]

Return of settlers under the direction of Messrs Hayhurst and Whitley (Cape Archives CO 6138/2,39 : this is the London list and included John Pollard and his family who were replaced shortly before sailing by Richard Halstead and his family); Special Commissioner William Hayward's notes, giving the subdivisions of the party (Cape Archives CO 8542). No Agent of Transports' Return has been traced for the John, showing the state of the parties as they arrived at the Cape.

According to E Morse Jones a son, Ralph, was born at sea to the wife of James Murray.